Number 23 - Look Who's Back - Timur Vermes

 

Again, a brand new writer for me. I picked this book entirely because of that cover.

Fish out of water stories are ten a penny. Take a character from one environment, put them somewhere they wouldn't normally be and sit back and watch. Time travel variants aren't particularly new - Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court being a perfect example from over 100 years ago.

This has to be the single most audacious take on the theme that I've ever seen. As you may have worked out from that cover, the fish out of water in this book is none other than the Fuhrer himself, Adolf Hitler.

He wakes up in 2010 in Berlin for no reason that is ever explained (not that a reason is needed, this is one of those 'just go with it' stories) and has to learn to navigate Germany and general existence in the age of the internetworks...

Everyone assumes he is an extremely dedicated impersonator who never breaks character. He manages land a guest spot on a satirical TV show, giving his opinions on modern life as he sees it.

As satires go, this is next level stuff. If you'd ever told me that a book written in first person from the point of view of Hitler would be this funny, I wouldn't have believed you. It's true that the laughs become more and more uncomfortable as the book goes on, but it's still laugh out loud funny even the times when you wonder exactly why this is funny. It's pretty disturbing towards the end too, despite the basic impossibility, the story feels horribly plausible.

Throughout the book we see conversations taken entirely the wrong way by both parties. These range from hysterically funny to an internal pleading that someone will recognise the fact that he's not joking (sometimes both at the same time). It's very cleverly written indeed. 

I'm sure I missed a few political sideswipes since I'm not an expert on 2010 German politics, but there's more than enough here to entertain, provoke and disturb regardless. It is jaw-droppingly good - in a literal sense.  My jaw genuinely dropped several times in the course of reading this.

I started by saying this was audacious and that's still the best single word I can think of to describe this book. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes potentially challenging fiction. I loved it unreservedly.

Number 22 - The Troop - Nick Cutter

 

I'm a bit late to the party on this one.  I've been hearing great things for several months on various horror pages online. And, in this case it appears everything I've heard is true.

A troop of scouts are on a weekend camping trip on a small island. On the first night, they have a visitor.  This visitor is sick and horribly contagious.

it's not any normal sickness either. it's vile and disgusting and pretty much sets a benchmark for what body horror should be.  To give detail on the specifics of the illness risks going into spoiler territory. but trust me it's like nothing I've read before and Cronenburg would be proud of some of the imagery going on in this book.

The boat that's supposed to pick them up never arrives, leaving them stuck with the disease and each other. Cabin fever turns out to be as dangerous as the infection threatening their lives.

This book hurt me, in all the right ways that good horror is supposed to.  It's told in alternating segments, mostly set on the island, but newspaper reports, and extracts from court and military hearings which explain exactly what's going on to the reader, letting us know exactly how far up that creek without a paddle the troop are. The final chapter is a huge gut punch with massive emotional impact.

It's well written with engaging characters, who are fleshed out nicely through a solid use of flashbacks. The tension is unbearable for most of the book. It's gory and disgusting in places but it never feels superfluous.  It's an integral part of this story, and not just cheap shock tactics. A strong stomach is necessary. 

I did find myself wondering why they didn't just make some oars and row the small outboard off the island, but that's a minor complaint.  This is a bunch of increasingly dysfunctional teenagers... is a plan like that going to occur to them as easily as it did to me sitting in my comfy chair reading this?

The only other niggle I have is the relatively early revelation of the number of survivors in one of the report segments. This turned the latter section of the book into an exercise in guessing who dies next, which has its own merits, but might have been more effective if we didn't know the exact number.

I will definitely be reading more by Nick Cutter (and maybe looking up his writing under his real name too).  He is without doubt, the most exciting new author I've found in the genre since Josh Malerman.

Number 21 - The Savage - David Almond & Dave McKean

 

Another brand new writer to me.

This is a young person's book, probably not even YA, about a young boy struggling to deal with the loss of his father. He starts writing his own comic about the Savage -a boy living like erm, a savage, on the outskirts of the small town he lives in.

His comic is illustrated by Dave McKean so we have a graphic novel within the regular novel.  It's an interesting format and works well.  McKean isn't a legendary graphic novel artist for nothing and his art here is perfectly suited to the story.

Almond's writing is basic (as you would expect from a children's book) but packs in a healthy dose of emotion and meaning. 

It's very short but sweet.

Number 20 the Turn of the Key - Ruth Ware

 

Next "new" author is Ruth Ware. I've only read one previously and therefore she counts.  Which is lucky since this is this month's book group read and still fits the theme nicely.

Rowan leaves her job as a nursery nurse in London to be a live in nanny for a family in the wilderness of Scotland. The mother and father are architects and the house, despite looking from the front like a traditional old house, is packed full of gadgets and cameras, and most things are fully automated.

It seems like a grand new start for Rowan, beautiful house, LOTS of money for the job, a friendly boss... shame the kids seem to hate her.

We know things aren't going to go well for Rowan since the book is written in the form of a letter she's trying to write from prison to a lawyer to explain how one of the three children wound up dead.

This is a real page-turner. and I zoomed through the 350 pages in just a few days.  

I assume the title is a deliberate spin on the Turn of the Screw - especially since the set up is a very modern update on the plot of that book = previous nannies leave suddenly, creepy/disobedient kids, ghostly happenings etc. Turn of the Screw is a missing link in my literary history, although I have seen at least three film versions, so I don't feel I can comment much more on any similarities/parallels there with any accuracy.

There are twists and turns galore and some very clever reveals towards the end, none of which are cheats since they've been hidden in plain sight throughout the book. In fact I thought one of those clues to the reveal was an inconsistency in the plot till I realised it was just very cleverly phrased to hide the true meaning.  It's a very well plotted book.

The solution to the mystery wasn't a massive surprise.  With a cast list so small the suspect list is not big enough for a complex mystery, but Ware keeps us switching between the suspects quite effectively throughout. It's thoroughly entertaining and never flagged for even a page.  It was compelling reading (as one of the nice reviewers on the front cover also points out) and hard to put down (as one of the others does).

There are a couple of minor niggle points. Potential spoilers so stop reading now if you feel you need to, just know this is an easy 7.5 out of 10 and well worth the couple of hours it'll take to read. 

Niggle 1 -With all the cameras in the rooms, why are there none in the corridors or on the landings?  Just one in the hallways would have saved Rowan from her fate

Niggle 2 - The last couple of pages tied things up maybe too neatly for my taste. I might have preferred a touch more ambiguity,

Niggle 3 - how did the girls find the secret den since the only way in was that particular route which Rowan seemed to think was impossible to get to?

Number 19 - Gothic - Philip Fracassi

 

This month's theme is new writers to me. So it seems like a good time to catch up on some review copies I have on my list.

Starting with this one.

Tyson parks is a writer.  He was successful twenty years ago but his star has fallen a long way. His last six books have been flops. The last one made a loss. He needs a new hit to resurrect his career, but is suffering with extreme writer's block and his agent isn't interested in the book he wants to write instead of the one he's contracted to.

When his girlfriend buys him a new writing desk for a surprise present, it seems to do the trick and his writer's block is gone, but at what cost? The desk has a less than salubrious past and is exerting an influence.

This is a quick and easy read with some extremely good set pieces.  The last third of the book is genuinely brilliant. 

It's not particularly original. Possessed/cursed object gives owner what they want at a price is a well used trope, but this is a good example of how to write it.

The Desk causes chaos before it even reaches Tyler's house. Once it's there. it sinks its tendrils into poor old Tyler almost immediately he sits down next to it. What follows is a violent and occasionally pretty gory take on the theme.

It's not a perfect book.  There's one major subplot left hanging, and the punchline on the last page is maybe a bit cheesy. The present tense narration grated on me for a while, and I never normally have a problem with that - but for the last several chapters it worked really well. 

Unless I missed a detail, there's a reasonably large plot hole regarding the lineage of our antagonist Miss Montresor (other than the horror aficionados in the story not making any Poe related comments). 

I raced through this book in just two days.  It's a real page-turner. It's fun, it's violent. There's a desk possessed by an evil ghost that kills anyone who gets in its way. What more do you want? 

Number 18 - Lungdon - Edward Carey

 

Concluding my continuing series theme for now is my long awaited read of the final volume of this mind-expanding trilogy. 

Edward Carey has to be the best author I discovered by accident. When I saw the first book in this series I thought he was another Edward (Edward Gorey).  However, the sheer inventiveness and true originality in his stories won me over in a few pages 

After the events of Foulsham, the Iremongers are now on the loose in London. People are disappearing. Random objects are appearing everywhere. The police are baffled and call in help that may be worse than the threat. Queen Victoria and parliament itself are under threat.

Whose side is Clod on? Is he a true Iremonger at heart, or will he fight against their schemes for revenge? The stakes are raised further than ever before in this final volume.

Despite the 500plus page count, I stormed through this book in a couple of days. Edward Carey is insanely easily readable. He still manages to throw surprise after surprise at the reader even in the third part of the trilogy.

It's not entirely flawless. The finale of the book does rely on an old fantasy trope that is somewhat overused, but this is a YA novel, so that's easily forgivable. This is one of my favourite trilogies and this book keeps up the standards of the first two to provide a suitably dramatic close to the story.

If you do buy these books, don't read the back covers of books two and three since they give away the endings of the previous volumes.

I recommend these books with no reservation whatsoever. The whole trilogy is an easy 5 star read.

Number 17 - Something is killing the Children Vol 5

 

Playing catch up on this. I read this in an hour last weekend as part of my continuing series theme. A return to the House of Slaughter.

Erica Slaughter has turned her back on the Order of St George and has gone rogue, slaying monsters without the complications the Order's rules imposed.

The order are not happy and want to deal with Erica, to set an example.

Meanwhile Erica is facing up to a new type of monster, straight from your deepest nightmares.

The storytelling here is top notch. Unfortunately the artwork can be very underwhelming. Some panels are truly impressive, the first clear view of the new monster for example, but otherwise it's not a visual feast like the Monstress or Gideon falls series and feels quite basic. At worst the art can be quite poor and off-putting.

The cliffhanger ending has me wanting to start picking up the comics, but then I'm in for a a cliffhanger every month almost when I catch up. It's a toss up. wait till September for Vol 6 (which would also be considerably cheaper than the individual comics...) or dive in...

Number 15.5 - Don't Dress For Dinner - Marc Camoletti/Robin Hawdon

 A brilliantly funny farce I'm performing in at the end of May

Bernard's wife Jacqueline is going away for the weekend to see her mother so Bernard invites his mistress Suzanne over to stay.  He also invites his best friend Robert as an alibi so if anyone asks, he can say she's Robert's girlfriend. 

However, when he tells his wife Robert is coming over, she cancels her plans and decides to stay.  What Bernard doesn't know is that Robert is Jacqueline's lover. 

Robert goes along with the plan to pretend to be Suzanne's lover because otherwise Bernard will find out. When the hired cook Suzette arrives before Suzanne and introduces herself as Suzy, Robert declares her to be his girlfriend, much to her surprise and Jacqueline's disgust, and events rapidly spiral out of control. 

When Suzanne arrives, she has to be the cook, since Robert's "girlfriend" is already here.  Lies pile upon lies and things get incredibly confusing, as per all the best farces.

The quality of some of these lines make it difficult to believe that it's been translated from French. 

It's one of the funniest scripts I've read and we've got a really good cast (including me).

We perform the last week of May at Stepping Stones Nursery, Chorley Old Road, Bolton

The Marco Players event tickets from TicketSource.

Number 15 - Beyond Here Lies Nothing - Gary McMahon

 

And near the end of my continuing series theme, the final part of the Concrete Grove trilogy by Gary McMahon.

It's a crying shame that Gary isn't as big a name in the horror scene as James Herbert and Ramsey Campbell. He's equally as good as either with his own distinctive brand of downbeat urban horror.

Whereas Ramsey's books are filled with middle class characters and paranoia, Gary's books are filled with the inhabitants of the council estates that cause Ramsey's characters so much dread.

The council estate in this trilogy is a character all of its own, filled with people just trying to get on with life, whilst all around, the badness is like an infection that's impossible to shake.

A personal factor that made this book extra creepy for me is that the central character this time around is called Marc, spelled with a C, the good way to spell it. I don't actually recall this happening in any other book. Reading about horrible things happening to Marc hit closer to the bone than they might have done normally. People called John must be used this sensation, but it's new to me.

Marc is in the Grove for the funeral of a friend he met whilst researching a local urban myth. He runs into the strangely seductive Abby, whose child went missing a few years previous, the last of 4 girls on the estate to simply vanish. The child's father is a returning character, a gangster who appeared in the previous books, and he doesn't take kindly to people who take too much interest in his ex partner.

This is just the start of Marc's problems. There are a few parallel storylines going on, involving Marc, the gangster, and an obsessed copper who worked on the case of the missing girls with no success. 

They pull together quite masterfully towards the end, even though the characters don't necessarily all interact at any point.   That takes a lot of skill to pull off (and is something I only just realised today writing this, a full 36 hours after finishing the book) but McMahon does it with no visible effort.

The horror becomes more cosmic than the previous volumes, each book allowing the scope to widen a bit more.  Again, this expansion of the in-story universe seems effortless. 

The prose is easy to read yet still atmospheric. There are some images from this book that will be difficult to shake off.  Particularly those surrounding a very surprise return of a character from book one, and the injuries sustained by a supporting character. 

There was once scene that felt a little cliched, and stood out for the wrong reasons, but in a novel of this length, it barely mattered. 

Read the trilogy from the start if you can.  They're all standalone novels, but together are greater than the sum of the whole. 

I'll start as I began. It's a damned shame Gary isn't a household name. He deserves to be. I've not read a bad book by him yet and he's so much better than some writers who are far more famous.